Marshall, Tom, Harsh and Lovely Land: The Major Canadian Poets and the Making of a Canadian Tradition, Vancouver: Univ. ofBritish Columbia Press, 1979.

This book offers a good overall look at Canadian literature, both past and at the time of publication. It is interesting to read about Ondaatje's work among his Canadian contemporaries, and he is cited as one of those poet-novelists who "seek to depict in fiction rather than in epic verse a world of primal psychic conflict, a dark underground of the soul."